


Two Monsters In A Burning World

by Wtfisgoingonhere



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Eren and Levi see the ocean, It's not fluff and it's not angst, Levi is a bit OoC, M/M, Somewhere between the two I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24376126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wtfisgoingonhere/pseuds/Wtfisgoingonhere
Summary: The music is slow and happy, the orchestra is perfectly ordered, and everyone is beautifully dressed.Levi is bored out of his skull.Plus Eren wants to leave to explore the outside world, probably alone, because he thinks he's a monster.Levi can't let him do it. After all, he's not less of a monster than Eren is, if he thinks about it. Andfuck, he wants to stay with that brat, even if he wouldn't admit it.
Relationships: Levi & Eren Yeager, Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 8
Kudos: 95





	Two Monsters In A Burning World

The music is slow and happy, the orchestra is perfectly ordered, and everyone is beautifully dressed.

Levi is bored out of his skull.

For a few months, there has been parties like that every week, and as one of the war heroes, he’s invited to every single one of them. They are organised by nobles from different cities, and Levi often wonders where they found the money to finance the feasts. He tries to avoid them as much as he can, but Hange had made him promise to go at least once a month. So here he is, drinking the wine (at least it’s a good one, he can give these people that) in a corner of the large room, trying his best not to glare at everyone. Sometimes it’s difficult.  
At least Eren is here, leaning against the wall and sipping in his glass silently.

Since their victory, eight months ago, Eren stays a lot more with Levi. It’s certainly because of Armin’s death, Levi knows. Eren was heartbroken for weeks, barely eating and sleeping. He had apparently tried to keep the grief from devouring him by training intensely all day long, even if there wasn’t anything to train for anymore. At some point, Levi had ordered him to help him with his paperwork and Eren had accepted with gratitude in his eyes.  
Four months ago, Mikasa had left with a special squad to try and kill the last titans around the walls, if there still was some. No one knows when they’d come back.  
Levi had thought that Eren would go with them, but he didn’t. He had stayed, saying that he couldn’t go if Levi didn’t come with him to monitor him, and that he had seen enough titans for the rest of his life anyway, he didn’t want to look for them. Levi didn’t dare to feel pleased about it. He was nevertheless.

But these days, Eren is more and more distant. Often, Levi catches him daydreaming, looking at the sky through the window of his office. One day, the boy said that it was a good thing if Mikasa and the nine other soldiers that left with her hadn’t come back yet, because it meant that there only was really few titans left. He said that it meant that outside the walls was probably safe.

Levi didn’t voice the very small but existent possibility that they were all killed.

Eren also sometimes looks at him with what looks suspiciously like nostalgia, him and his other comrades who fought with them. Jean, Sasha, Connie. It accentuated lately. Levi knows Eren. He knows what’s on his mind.

“When are you going?” He asks at the boy silent next to him.

Eren turns his head to look at him, frowning, confusion in his eyes.

“What are you talking about?”

Levi gazes back at the noisy multicolour crowd in front of him.

“Don’t give me that look, brat. I know you’re leaving. You had this in your mind for a long time. Go outside the walls and finally explore the world, leaving this,” he nods toward the crowd, “behind you. And you aren’t exactly discreet in your preparatives. So, when are you going?”

Eren hesitates a little.

“In… in three days,” he answers eventually.

Levi tries not to feel hurt at this. When was the brat planning to tell him? He values whatever it is that he shares with Eren, this weird friendship that isn’t really one. They aren’t an officer and his soldier anymore, Levi even finally convinced the fucking brat to call him by his name. They are much more, they understand each other and find comfort in the other’s presence, even in silence. At least, Levi finds comfort in Eren’s presence.

He hopes Eren at least planned to tell him goodbye.

Chasing these thoughts, he raises his chin.

“Good. I’m coming with you,” he announces.

He thought about it. Since the war was over, he always felt the call of _outside_. And really, the life he is living now isn’t for him.

“What? You can’t do that!”

Levi sighs, he had expected Eren to say things like this.

“I can’t let you risk your life alone,” he shrugs as if it was the main reason he was willing to come. It is the easiest reason to admit anyway. “It’s my duty to protect you, you know. It won’t change now.”

“You can’t do this!” Eren exclaims. “You have a life, here, friends, you can’t just give that up! And you have more important duties!”

Levi glares at him.

“If by duties you mean to enormous amount of paperwork Hange is giving me because I have the title of officer, then I’ll be happy to tell you that she can replace me with anyone, and that whoever she chooses will be ten times as efficient as me.”

Eren crosses his arms in a defensive position.

“Still. I don’t want to be a burden. That’s why I’m leaving. I already overran too much of your life, and too much of the lives of my friends,” he affirms.

Levi’s eyes run along the crowd, thinking.

“Is it?” He asks after a moment.

“What?”

“Is it really why you’re leaving? Because you don’t want to be a burden?”

Eren sighs and uncrosses his arms, relaxing a bit against the wall.

“It’s a part of it,” he admits. “But this, all of this…” He gestures around. “These feasts about _victory_ and _rebirth_ , the honours about the war as if we didn’t lose so much, and… and _everything_ , that’s not for me. I’m a monster, Levi. I’m not part of this.”

“You’re a monster and that’s why you want to leave, you say?” Levi asks. “Well, Eren, look around you. Look at these people, chatting together, drinking, eating. They talk to everybody, civilians and former soldiers alike.” He pauses. “But do you see how they look at me?”

“They admire you,” Eren answers without hesitation. “You’re a hero.”

Levi rolls his eyes. Of course, Eren wouldn’t understand the looks and the whispers are not only meant for ‘The Titan Boy’.

“Look better,” he orders. “Do you see their nervousness every time they talk to me or are near? Do you see the elusive and uncertain gazes, the fear at the back of their eyes? These looks are not only directed at you, you’d see it if you actually payed attention. And that’s not how you look at a fucking hero.”

“But that’s what you are,” Eren protests.

Levi gives him a severe look, shaking his head.

“Don’t you know better, Eren? Nothing about me tells ‘hero’,” he asserts. “I’m rude, difficult to talk to, and I never smile. I’m always on guard with at least one weapon on me, and you know very well I look scary.”

Eren is silent for a second.

“You do, sometimes,” he finally says. “Smile, I mean.”

Levi snorts, amused despite him. Of all his enumeration, that’s what Eren chooses to focus on.

“Yeah, but not in front of them,” he concedes, before adding. “Look at Hange. They're a hero. They're saying the right things at the right moment, they're laughing sometimes, they're _kind_.”

“Who needs you to be kind? You’re Humanity’s Strongest!”

“Exactly,” Levi confirms with a steady voice. “I’m the man who killed as many titans alone as all the other soldiers of the Survey Corps combined, or so they believe. Of course they liked it during the war. Of course they fucking admired me, because I know how to kill. But now? Now they only fear that strength. What am I going to do now that the war is over? What battle am I going to fight? What if at some point there was another war, and I was against them?”

Eren stays silent considering these words. They are true, they both know it, and it doesn’t matter if Levi is tired of fighting. People will always think of him as a fighter.

And in these times of newly found peace, people are tired of fighters.

“And of course,” he continues before Eren could add anything, “there’s that small voice at the back of their mind. This voice that reminds them the titans were humans before, humans exactly like them, that didn’t ask anything. And I killed more of these than they could imagine. A voice that says that I’m not Humanity’s Strongest, but Humanity’s fucking Best Killer.”

Levi pauses.

“In their eyes, I’m another monster.”

“You’re not!”

Eren’s eyes are fierce, diving in Levi’s. He shakes his head, as if to try and chase this idea from his mind.

“You believe that. They don’t,” Levi says, impassive.

“And if they think that even you are a monster, there are other people who would deserve that name too!” Eren continues with force, ignoring him. “Erwin Smith, first of them, who ordered to kill more soldiers than he ever killed titans! And look at how they admire him!”

Levi winces.

“Yes, but he’s dead. It changes everything. Now Erwin is just one more victim in this war, one more hero that sacrificed his life. They fear me because I didn’t sacrifice mine. Because I managed to survive.”

Eren search in his eyes, trying to find a break in his reasoning. When he doesn’t find one, he drops his gaze on the glass of wine in his hand, leaning again against the wall.

“You’ll never be a monster in my eyes, Levi,” he says after a moment, and the man knows that Eren is as sincere as humanly possible.

“I know,” he replies gently, because he does know. If there was only one person in this world that would see his humanity, it would be Eren. “But you’re different from anybody else, aren’t you? You know I don’t want to fight anymore. You know I’m not fucking indestructible. They stupidly believe I am.”

Levi gazes again in front of them, at the crowd moving at the rhythm of the dancers in their fancy clothes.

“You say your life isn’t there,” he states. “Mine isn’t either. They hate me, behind these admiring gazes. Because I’ll always be a reminder of the war they lost so much in, a reminder of how weak they are. We’re two monsters Eren, you because of what you are, and me because of what I did.”

“That’s stupid,” Eren says childishly, for lack of other arguments.

Levi’s face relaxes, and he looks at the younger man softly. The twitch of his lips could have been a smile, if Levi did that sort of things in public.

“I came to term with that fact a long time ago. And I don’t need you to defend my honour, brat.”

They don’t say anything for a while, before Levi gestures toward the people in front of them.

“And, for your information, I’m coming for me, not for you,” he adds. “Look at them, Eren. Did you really think I’d let you leave me there with these people, with those… fucking dresses and buffets and stupidities? Disgusting.”

He likes the way Eren laughs quietly, as if they were conspiring, just the two of them against everybody else. When Levi thinks about it, it’s certainly the case.

He lets his back lean against the wall next to Eren, and if their elbows are now touching, it’s only by accident. Levi sips his wine, finishing his glass.

“We’re alike, you and I,” he says. “Monsters, for everybody but for each other. And monsters are beautiful only in a burning world.” He pauses. “This world isn’t burning anymore.”

After a moment, Eren smiles.

“You speak weirdly tonight, Levi. Like one of those poets you hate,” he chuckles. “What’s going on?”

Something that feels terribly like a laugh shakes silently Levi’s chest. He hears in Eren’s voice that he agrees with him, in the end. That they will go together, and that Eren will be okay with that.

The brat is right, though. He doesn’t know what took over him.

“Shut the hell up,” he growls. “They must have put something in the fucking wine.”

The younger man laughs again.

“Now I recognize you!” He exclaims, and Levi feels lighter than ever.

Eren sips his wine and doesn’t speak for a long while. Levi doesn’t want to move.

“If people knew you like I do,” Eren says quietly, “they would never think of you as a monster. But I’m glad you want to come with me.”

Levi turns his head to stare at him. He never does, usually. His gaze never lingers on Eren for long. But here, tonight, it feels like it’s okay.

“Maybe I don’t want people to know me like you do,” he finally answers.

Eren turns his head and meets his gaze, and the intensity in those green eyes twists something in his chest. It feels good.

After a moment, Eren smiles and Levi looks away.

“Come on,” he says. “If I’m right, it’s our last evening in public. Let’s go and annoy some boring people before we don’t have the chance anymore. And I want more of that fucking wine.”

Eren’s laughter follows him through the crowd and gives him wings.

***

Somehow, Levi never really imagined the ocean. Eren had talked about it multiple times, and Levi had tried to wrap his mind around the concept, but never actually wondered what it would look like.

Now, looking at the immensity in front of them, calmly wavering under the sunset, Levi knows that however he might have imagined it, it would never have looked as beautiful.

Eren’s standing with his feet in the water looking at the ocean, a few meters in front of him, and Levi knows he’s never felt that peaceful in his entire life.

“Do you remember that evening, right before we left?”

Eren’s voice rises just above the whisper of the waves. Levi nods even though Eren can’t see him. He does remember that evening, three months ago, when they decided to definitely let the Walls and their ghosts behind them. Probably the best decision of his life.

The younger man turns to look at him, and Levi knows that he will never forget this expression on his face.

“You said that the world wasn’t burning anymore,” Eren says.

There’s something blazing in his eyes and Levi thinks he is like the ocean. Untamable.

“You were wrong,” he continues. “It’s burning so bright I never want it to stop.”

Levi feels his chest clench. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the ocean, of how beautiful the sunset is from here or because of the way Eren says these words.

He makes a few steps ahead and stands next to Eren, their hands brushing together.

Levi doesn’t step away. He wants to _never_ step away.

He agrees with Eren.

It _is_ burning.

And monsters are beautiful when the world is burning.

**Author's Note:**

> This just kept coming in my mind. Thank you for reading.
> 
> English is not my first language, so if you see mistakes, please feel free to point them out.


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